The Buffalo Sabres will play the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference First Round on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET, bringing postseason hockey back to Buffalo for the first time in 15 seasons. It is the Sabres’ first playoff game since 2011, and the arena around KeyBank Center was already dressed for it on Saturday.
Playoff logos were placed on the windows outside the building and blue and gold “We’re back” towels hung over seatbacks inside as the team held its final practice before the series. Alex Tuch said he expected a different kind of noise when fans poured in on Sunday, calling KeyBank Center “a whole other animal” and saying, “I think the roof’s going to probably pop off the building.”
That scene carries extra weight because Buffalo last hosted a playoff game on April 24, 2011, when it lost 5-4 in overtime to the Philadelphia Flyers at what was then HSBC Arena. The Sabres later lost Game 7 in Philadelphia, and the team spent the next 15 seasons outside the postseason.
The return also comes with Lindy Ruff back behind the bench, after he returned as Buffalo coach on April 22, 2024. Ruff, who had already coached the Sabres and later worked in Dallas and New Jersey, said Saturday the city was “incredibly jacked up” and that the wait had been “such a long wait.”
Boston and Buffalo are meeting in the playoffs for the ninth time, and the matchup now shifts from anticipation to the kind of pressure Buffalo has not felt at home in more than a decade. The only question that matters Sunday is whether the Sabres can turn that long wait into a first step, or whether the Bruins quiet the building before the night gets going.
